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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Not quite. That's what it looks like on the surface, but knowing what I do about the way the boys in Beijing operate, this is a storm in a teacup.

China doesn't want to go to war with Taiwan, because a war with Taiwan would lead to the biggest "international system cascade failure" we've seen since the outbreak of World War I. To that end, the current Taiwanese KMT government needs to remain in power, look strong, and maintain enough credibility to prevent Taiwan from voting for full independence from the mainland. Ma Ying-Jeou has currently been on rather shaky ground from moving too quickly for rapproachment with the mainland (despite the fact that everything he's done to date has generally involved giving Taiwan all the benefits of being "part of China" without the loss of sovereignty); he needs to look strong to opponents of reunification in order to keep the KMT dominant. Buying more arms from the US does this.

China will send the usual letter of complaint through the usual diplomatic channels; they will be ignored by everyone- and behind the closed doors of Zhongnanhai, Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao will light their cigarettes and breathe sighs of relief that the Taiwan disaster has been averted for another few years- because they don't want it either.

(What, you say that they simply don't have to go to war with Taiwan? They are dictators, right? They call the shots, don't they? Well, not quite. But that's a lecture for another day...)

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Loaning the U.S. money (at interest) so that they can continue to profit on exports to the U.S. and erode our manufacturing base. And so our politicians can put off a needed fiscal reckoning, allowing the inevitable to grow to catastrophic proportions. Yep, that sounds like China is just trying to help...

A more apt metaphor is the vampire who gives his victim CPR to keep the blood flowing out of the wound. That being said, on the economic stuff, we've mostly done it to ourselves. China just seized the opportunity to play a long winning game against an ADHD-affilicted opponent.

And how about them cyber attacks on our infrastructure?

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